Hello everybody!

So, I’ve been slacking off on getting my part of the BOF episode reviews out there, partly because I need to get used to the new format of reviewing a few episodes at a time. You know me, I love being really, really detailed! Anyway, let’s see if I can do this right:

In this section of the drama, things get really serious, really quickly. At this point, even though the evil Madam Kang has done some pretty underhanded plotting, nothing really drastic and dramatic has happened to try and keep Jan Di and Jun Pyo apart. But in these 5 episodes, there seems to be 2 themes: Ordinary, everyday happiness and super dramatic, malicious danger.

At this point, Jan Di is pretty set on being with Jun Pyo (leaving poor Ji Hoo out in the cold… AGAIN) and so there are a lot of cute moments when Jun Pyo experiences what an unprivileged, normal life is. My favorite part of this is when Jun Pyo forces Jan Di and her family to let him stay the night at their house. This is an important sequence because Jun Pyo is not only taking in the way that ‘common’ people live, but he’s also really enjoying his experience – it’s the first time he’s ever been around an actual family, and he loves it.

Madam Kang comes back into the picture, though, and really brings about a lot of serious, and scary, trouble. She uses her more devious connections to put Jan Di (and therefore Jun Pyo) into some really deep trouble. Kang runs Jan Di’s family out of their dry cleaning business, and then hires thugs to go and destroy their makeshift roadside snacks stand. Jun Pyo proves that, reputable business or no, he’s still in love with Jan Di and will forsake his family’s reputation to be with his love.

So, Madam Kang tries a more complicated – and more dangerous – approach. She arranges for Jan Di to meet an unknown freshman at Shinhwa High – Jae Ha – who is secretly a popular model.

At one point, Jan Di gets trapped in a chemistry lab at school and is almost suffocated by poisonous gasses that are leaked into the room, which has been completely locked and sealed. Jae Ha comes in the nick of time to save her, but that’s all part of the plot to get her to trust him (because you know she has a thing for people who come to her rescue – in fact, she calls him her black knight! Gee, I wonder who her white knight would be…) Jae Ha, however, is not only Madam Kang’s lackey, but is also the brother of the man Jan Di saves WAY back in Episode 1.

Because she saved his brother, he tries to keep Jan Di out of real danger, and even tries to kiss her at one point (she rejects him). But because she refuses to leave Jun Pyo, Jae Ha has to go forward with Madam Kang’s plan. Combined with Madam Kang’s orders to break them up and his own desire for revenge on Jun Pyo, Jae Ha eventually kidnaps Jan Di (after she resists his advances, of course) and forces Jun Pyo to come ‘rescue her’ in an abandoned warehouse.

Here’s the serious part: aside from all the beatings that Jan Di endured in the first episodes, no one has gotten seriously injured at this point. All that is about to change. This whole episode with the kidnapping and the warehouse is just the beginning of the more serious danger.  Jun Pyo allows himself to be beaten to a pulp by Jae Ha and his fellow Jun Pyo-haters, so that Jan Di will stay safe. Jan Di, though, throws herself on top of Jun Pyo just before one of the guys brings a chair down on him – instead, Jan Di receives the blow on her shoulder, and passes out.

The serious violence doesn’t stop there – later on, Jan Di puts her own life in danger by going out in a blizzard during a school-sponsored ski trip in order to look for a special necklace that Jun Pyo gave her. The necklace – which is gorgeous, by the way – was actually stolen by one of the three main Plastics, who then tell Jan Di that she must have lost it at the top of the mountain earlier that day.

Jan Di almost freezes in the blizzard, alone, trying to look for the necklace because she knows that Jun Pyo will be furious with her. Jun Pyo comes and saves her, though (although Ji Hoo would have done so, had Woo Bin and Yi Jung not stopped him for his own safety) and they wait out the rest of the blizzard together in the ski patrol’s lodge at the top of the mountain.

Episode 12 ends with Jun Pyo on a plane to China, where his father has had a heart attack and collapsed, so he and Madam Kang are going over there to be with him and to help run the company. Ji Hoo has tried to get Jan Di to the airport to see him and say goodbye, but they’re too late. So she cries about how she didn’t get to tell him that she liked him while Ji Hoo comforts her. And you know what that means – the love triangle is still going strong!

By the end of these episodes, we’re fairly certain that Jan Di has decided on Jun Pyo, despite the serious danger that his mother has put her through again and again, but this new development about his father  collapsing and his sudden trip to China jeopardizes their relationship and offers Ji Hoo yet another chance to try and win her heart completely. Will Jan Di and Jun Pyo be able to have a long-distance relationship? Will Madam Kang finally get her wish and separate the two of them forever? Will Ji Hoo actually win Jan Di over? Find out in the next review!